Coneybeares keep butcher business in family

On
April 2, 1946, Morgan Prentice purchased a sirloin steak for 60 cents,
and some beef for $1.10, from Harry Easton, butcher, according to
yellowing receipts that are now more than 70 years old.

The
price of meat is quite different nowadays and Coneybeare’s Butcher
Shop, the shop behind Minden’s main street, serves the public from an
addition on the original building.

But
Harry Easton would likely be proud to know the business he started after
arriving to the area from England in the 1940s is not just still
standing in the same place, but thriving as it changes hands from his
great grandson Chris Coneybeare to his great, great granddaughter,
Chris’s daughter Lily.

Chris has
changed too, looking a bit different than his 1980s self, when he
returned from college in Toronto to help his dad, Al (Cub) Coneybeare
and grandfather Bill Coneybeare. Thirty-two years later, he’s ready to
retire alongside his wife, retired teacher Michele, and pass the
business to the next generation – the fifth generation to own the
butcher shop.

Harry owned the main
street space as well as a slaughterhouse that was on what is now known
as Colonial Road off of South Lake Road.

In
those early days, beef would be picked up off the train in Gelert,
taken to the slaughterhouse for preparation and then to the downtown
shop to be sold.

His two sons, Lance Easton and Bill Coneybeare, learned from Harry.

Eventually
the business was taken from a butcher shop to a full-fledged store,
known as the Minden Red and White, which was opened in the 1950s for
almost 30 years. After Easton’s Valumart opened on the highway, Chris’s
dad Al kept the butcher shop open with main street frontage while
severing the building to house a Beckers in the ’80s.

“I
came back [from Toronto] and learned from my dad and my grandfather how
to cut meat,” said Chris. “I’ve never had any formal training or
anything. It’s all been passed down over generations.”

It
was Chris who added the addition on to the back of the building, where
Coneybeare’s remains a busy place with a famous reputation for quality
meat.

“When I first started before I
had this addition back here, this room, it was just sort of my
grandfather and I cutting farmers’ beef, and cutting deer and moose and
all of that kind of stuff, and wholesale orders to restaurants and stuff
like that,” said Chris. “Then I decided to put in the retail space.
But, just spending time with my grandfather, he’s wrapping, I’m cutting,
he’s wrapping, I’m cutting ... [those are] memories I’ll always have.”

Now,
he’s having those same experiences with his daughter, Lily, the fifth
generation in their family to be involved in the business.

After
earning a degree in chemistry, Lily was working as head brewer at
Boshkung Brewing Co. when her dad began to discuss his retirement and a
succession plan.

"This opportunity
opened up and I figured if I’m working for a small business I might as
well be working for my own,” she said. Though perhaps the role is one
that’s not traditional for women, that doesn’t matter much to Lily.

“I’ve never been shy to work hard or shy to do any task, so I’m just jumping in,” she said.

Lily
said she didn’t ever feel any pressure to take the butcher shop on, but
had always been interested in the family’s business.

“I
just know I love the area, and I know I love to live here, and I never
wanted the business to leave the family, that was always very important
to me, that it stay within our name,” she said. “Just, the generational
thing. The trade itself is something that’s maybe not dying, but there’s
not a lot of skilled butchers anymore, maybe. So I just thought, I
wanted to learn the skill, and I wanted to know everything that my dad
knows eventually and can carry it on.”

“I
think it’s really cool that we’re carrying on the name,” she said.
“It’s such a small town feel because even since I’ve started working
here, so many people know me by name now already, just because I’m here.
At first when I was started I was worried, because you’re worried that
when you have a business, that it won’t carry on, because my dad is the
face of the business. But people have pretty well accepted, I think
because I’m family, that I’m the next generation and I’m going to do the
same thing that he’s done, keep the quality the same and everything.”

Lily
said she’s interested in the idea of craft butcher shops as well,
noting that some shops in the city do dry aging and specialty work.

“I
just like that it’s a small business and you can kind of take it where
you want to take it,” she said. “We don’t do anything like that right
now, but there’s definitely lots of room to play around and make it your
own.”

As for the shop, Lily is not making any drastic changes to the store, but has added a few unique touches inside.

“A
few small changes ... I’ve got ideas,” she laughed, alongside her dad.
“I just wait until he travels and then I start putting pictures up and
painting, adding my own touch to it for sure.”

Coneybeare’s
Butcher Shop is developing an online presence with a new website and
social media pages, which Lily laughed brings the shop, “into the 21st
century.”

Like many businesses in the
county, Chris said learning how to live with the seasonal highs and lows
can be a challenge, but the butcher shop has endured.

“It’s
been good,” he said. “It’s like any business in Haliburton, you work
your butt off in the summer, and in the winter you can go a lot easier.
It’s very self-rewarding in the summertime when people are lined up out
the door, it’s really hectic and crazy. Well, we’re doing something
right, you know?

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